Marion Edmunds and Ann Eveleth
The recently released hardline Inkatha Freedom Party constitution calls for a provincial army, exclusive provincial policing powers and the right to refuse intervention in the province by the South African National Defence Force. It also claims exclusive powers over all constitutional, legislative, judicial, and financial matters and paves the way for an unelected provincial government.
The IFP draft says neither the provincial premier nor other members of the provincial cabinet need come from the elected parliament. The Zulu King is mandated, in consultation with the leaders of majority parties, to choose the premier, who is then empowered to form a cabinet at his discretion. The provincial parliament is then mandated to cast a vote of confidence or no confidence in the cabinet within 10 days.
The African National Congress analysis argues this feature “produces an autocratic monarchist government which is not really responsible to the parliament and to the
The ANC has slammed the IFP constitution in an internal paper — prepared for the party leadership but leaked to the Mail & Guardian this week — which claims that the IFP proposal “is a document of secession … written under the supposition of and in preparation for secession”.
The ANC said of the IFP security provisions for a Volunteer Reserve Force and exclusive provincial policing powers: “There is no federation in the whole world which allows its inherent state to maintain its own army.”
The release of the IFP constitution comes amid a growing rift between IFP provincial “moderates” and national hardliners over the multi-party constitutional negotiations in progress in the province.
Provincial negotiators this week defied moves by national negotiator and IFP deputy national chairman Sipo Mzimela, and constitutional advisor Mario Ambrosini, to quash the multi-party process and force a parliamentary vote on a set of hardline principles which would surely have set the province on course for fresh elections.
Mzimela last week rejected a compromise document drafted by all parties, but provincial negotiators this week pushed ahead with multi-party talks in the constitutional committee.
But provincial negotiators claimed last week that Mizimela’s hardline position had “nothing to do” with their efforts to secure a negotiated compromise with other parties including the ANC in the province.
Observers argue that the seismic rift in the IFP casts doubts on attempts to democratise party structures over the past year, while the heavy-handed interference of national leaders in the provincial process casts aspersions on the party’s claims of
Ironically, a party whose claims to internal democracy are in dispute, is promoting a constitution that provides for the government of the “kingdom” to intervene in the internal affairs of political parties and trade unions whose structures are deemed
The constitution also says: “The kingdom of KwaZulu-Natal is a sovereign member state of the Republic of South Africa.”
The ANC’s rejoinder is that “the notion of a ‘member state’ is only used within an international context: “For example, the European states forming the European Union are called ‘member states’ in the Treaty of the European Community.”
The ANC also criticises the IFP claim for “a priority of the provincial constitution over the (national) constitution”, saying “the only similar rules are to be found in the separatist constitution of Tartarstan”.
The ANC argues these clauses “could only be accepted after a secession of KwaZulu-Natal … No federal state (anywhere in the world) can — except in danger of its own dissolution — permit that the legitimacy of its national actions would finally be controlled by the constitutions of its provinces or revised by their constitutional courts. The intention clearly is in the direction of secession”.
The IFP constitution also makes several declarations regarding the superiority of provincial laws over national laws. The ANC argues this claim for the “sovereignty of parliament implies that the Republic of South Africa … should only be a composed entity (not a state) consisting of sovereign provinces with all the attributes of a national state”.
The ANC compares this model to that of the European Union, “which is also not yet a state, but merely a confederation of states”.